Online marketplaces enable customers to search for or browse information regarding items that are available for purchase from a variety of sources and in a variety of ways through one or more network pages or sites. For example, an online marketplace may offer items for sale that it owns and controls, as well as items that are owned by sellers, via one or more web pages or web sites. Online marketplaces typically provide information regarding such items, regardless of their source, to customers via network pages or sites that are accessible to networked computing devices of any type or form.
Improvements to Internet programming and network connectivity have greatly enhanced the breadth and quality of information that an online marketplace may provide to customers regarding its product offerings. Originally, online marketplaces merely hosted pages that displayed names of items that were available for purchase, along with brief descriptions of such items, or single, static images of such items. Today, however, online marketplaces are able to host dynamic pages that feature a wide variety of information regarding available items, including in-depth descriptions, specifications, details, instructions for assembly or use, rankings or feedback from other customers, as well as any number of still or moving images depicting views of such items, or showing the items in their intended uses. Such pages also enable customers to interact with the online marketplace regarding an item, or with one or more manufacturers, merchants, sellers or vendors of the item, as well as customers who have previously purchased the item, directly through such pages or, alternatively, via one or more social networks.
Despite advancements in Internet technology and the maturity of their network pages and sites, online marketplaces are limited in their ability to fully and accurately describe available items to customers, particularly for items of apparel. Although volumes of information regarding an item that may be provided to customers via a network page or site are theoretically unbounded, online marketplaces are currently unable to present any information other than that which may be seen (e.g., text or imagery) or heard (e.g., music or other sounds). Presently, online marketplaces cannot provide any information that might be perceived by three of the five senses, viz., the senses of touch, taste or smell.
This deficiency is particularly problematic when an online marketplace offers for sale one or more items of apparel, which naturally come into contact with portions of the human body during use. Unlike brick-and-mortar stores, online marketplaces are currently unable to permit customers to “try on” items prior to purchasing them, in order to determine which variation or model of a particular item or product feels best to the individual customer. Instead, customers may merely view pictures or video, or read product details or comments from other customers, regarding items of apparel such as belts, gloves, hats, pants, shirts, shorts, socks, shoes or underwear before selecting and purchasing one or more of such items. Similarly, customers are also unable to feel other commercial items such as carpets, mats, pillows, rugs, seat cushions, tiles, towels or other items that are also specifically designed to come into contact with skin during use.
The inability to try on a particular article of clothing, or to otherwise experiment with an item prior to purchasing it, places online marketplaces at a disadvantage to their brick-and-mortar counterparts. Although articles of clothing or other items that are intended to be touched by users may be characterized with words describing contents of such articles or items (e.g., canvas, cashmere or cotton, or fur, flannel or fleece), or their methods of manufacture (e.g., cross-stitched, stone-washed, screen-printed), or even the way that such articles or items feel (e.g., soft, smooth, rough), customers are unable to touch and feel an article or an item, or to visibly examine the article or the item, unless and until the article or the item is ordered and received.
To overcome inefficiencies and uncertainty associated with the purchase of items from online marketplaces, many customers may choose to order multiple variations or models of items from an online marketplace, even though they intend to keep and use just one of the variations, and to return the other items to the online marketplace after they have chosen a variation or model that subjectively feels the best. Such a scenario may create challenges for the online marketplace, which must deliver multiple variations or models of a specific class or type of item, and then return all but one of the variations or models to stock while only receiving payment for one of the variations or models. Moreover, this scenario may result in a fluctuating account of available inventory that may be provided to other customers. Although some online marketplaces or Internet-based marketplaces or vendors enable customers to request and receive samples of items by mail, thereby enabling a customer to touch and feel or look at such samples prior to making a purchase, such policies are inherently limited in that such marketplaces or vendors are required to obtain and maintain material samples in stock, and to deliver such samples to customers. Such policies also require a marketplace or vendor to manufacture and store an unusable quantity of a material, in an unusual shape, and absorb the cost of shipping the material to a customer, without any guarantee that a profit will be gained as a result of such efforts.